


This My Excavation

by especiallythezefronposter



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Crying, Hulk Feels, Hulk Needs a Hug, M/M, Misunderstandings, Non-Sexual Intimacy, POV Hulk, Smart Hulk, Touch-Starved, one mention of suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-30
Updated: 2016-01-30
Packaged: 2018-05-17 04:48:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5854795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/especiallythezefronposter/pseuds/especiallythezefronposter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hulk's fingers are soft now, pink and weak. Banner's fingers, with short nails and callouses and a ring that means safe, that means mother and protection and home. Hulk knows where Banner normally keeps this ring, knows that he only ever wears it when he can't stop thinking of her. When she's stuck in his head like Hulk is.</p><p>Except now Banner is the one stuck.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This My Excavation

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a bit ago and I'm mostly posting it to get myself to write a continuation. I hope you enjoy, and let me know if you have any suggestions as to where this story can go!

Hulk is used to being alone.

He is not used to being small. There is a bed under him, bedsheets, nothing breaking or tearing as everything does when he touches it. This is the room Banner sleeps in, the room he has nightmares in. Hulk only ever comes here when he's stuck in Banner's head, and once in his own body, when Banner was so afraid in his sleep he couldn't keep Hulk down anymore. Once he saw, even if he couldn't be in his own body, when the metal-armed soldier attacked Banner, and Banner did not defend himself against the metal-armed man, but against Hulk rousing in his head.

Hulk's fingers are soft now, pink and weak. Banner's fingers, with short nails and callouses and a ring that means safe, that means mother and protection and home. Hulk knows where Banner normally keeps this ring, knows that he only ever wears it when he can't stop thinking of her. When she's stuck in his head like Hulk is.

Except now Banner is the one stuck. Hulk is free. Hulk is weak. Even his own body is damaged.

His feet do not crack open the floor as he sets them one after the other on the carpet. He cannot smash like this. He would only bleed.

It's hard to see anything clearly. Banner's eyes are as weak as his skin and his heart. His glasses are on the nightstand and Hulk can't hold them like Banner does, precise and careful, grabs them in his fist and struggles to put them on his nose.

He does not see as he normally sees, but it's an improvement. The door handle, too, is hard to grab and hold carefully. He does not close the door behind himself.

He has only seen most of the Tower from inside Banner's head, but he has seen other places. He knows hallways and TV's, knows what plaster and electronics feel like under his fists. He wants to smash things, but he does not want to bleed.

On this floor, Banner is alone. Hulk knows he hates it, that he prefers the labs and the common floor and Hulk understands. Worse than silence is only hearing the sounds you make yourself as you move through a place you know is deserted.

Hulk does not want to take the elevator. His own body does not even fit into it, but he cannot find another way to leave.

There are no names in the elevator, only numbers, so he looks at them and thinks. Banner has a strong mind, despite the rest of him being weak. He could figure this out. But Banner is where he always is when Hulk's at play, asleep in a corner, uncooperative out of spite.

Hulk hears his own breathing stop and then speed up when the elevator doors quietly slide shut. He pushes the buttons, dizzy with panic, but the doors do not open again, and the elevator moves without his consent. Banner would feel safe here, too docile to think of the dangers, but Hulk punches the puny walls, remembers how they are supposed to break under his fists.

He bleeds.

He does not notice that the elevator stills, but when the doors slide open, he turns. The Captain stands in the light of a hallway, bright like a beacon. He frowns when he sees Hulk.

'Bruce', he says. 'You heading up?'

'Banner sleep,' Hulk says. He does not want to be in Banner's body with its stinging, bleeding knuckles. He wants to be strong, he wants to break a window and disappear into the night.

The Captain's hand is on his shoulder. He wants more warmth against him, more human against him, but he wants the Captain to step away, too, to never make him feel this desperate again. This Banner and him have in common. 'Hulk? How - are you okay?'

'Hulk is puny.' He wants to say other things, that he does not want to be puny, that he doesn't want the Captain to touch him, that he wants to be touched more. He has only ever experienced touch through Banner, from a corner of his mind. And Banner does not get touched often.

The Captain fishes a handkerchief out of his pocket, and very slowly, brings it to Hulk's face. He does not stop him. He hopes the Captain will touch him more, not just his shoulders but his nose and his ears and chin and his forehead and his collarbones and his ribs and his stomach and his ass and his back and his legs. Banner once got a massage and Hulk takes care of that memory very well, remembers it every time he can, so that it will stay clear and accurate. He wants the Captain to touch him that thoroughly, and a new kind of greed blooms and takes root in his chest and his hands and his eyes and the tips of his toes.

The Captain drags the handkerchief over his cheek, gently, like people should be with Banner, not with Hulk. Hulk reaches up, to take the handkerchief before the Captain can take it to his other cheek. He touches it with the pads of his fingers, does not squeeze, is gentle. It is wet.

Sometimes, he is aware of Banner crying at night, when no one hears him. In these moments Banner feels like he is worth nothing, like he should die. Hulk does not feel like that.

And yet he cries.

The Captain looks at him with fear in his eyes, but it is the wrong kind of fear, gentle fear that doesn't call for fists and bullets. Hulk doesn't know this fear, but he wants to, he wants to be able to dig it out of the Captain's mind and smash it, so that it will never exist again. 

He drags the handkerchief over his cheeks, again and again, but the Captain still looks scared. He isn't touching Hulk anymore. Hulk doesn't know what he's doing wrong. This is what the Captain wanted to do.

Eventually he's stopped by a hand around this wrist, and a fearful thing is his chest settles for now. 'It's okay,' says the Captain. 'You can stop now.'

So Hulk stops.

'Hulk, can you tell me what's going on?'

'Hulk body hurt,' Hulk says. 'Banner body no hurt.' All other things he cannot say. Hulk puts his hand over the one the Captain has around his wrist and slowly pulls it away from his arm. He presses his face into the Captain's open palm and breathes deeply. He wants to be surrounded by this, to have touch in his mouth and lungs as well as on his skin.

The Captain touches his hair. His fingers reach into it and touch his scalp like the bottom of the ocean. Banner is scared when people touch his scalp, because of the scars under his hair, but Hulk does not want to be scared. He wants to dig scared out of his own mind and smash it. 

Then the Captain puts his arms around him, and Hulk has a shoulder to press his face into instead of a hand. His newfound greed wants the strength of his own body to keep the Captain here forever. Hulk only wants what the Captain gives.

'Is Bruce okay?', the Captain asks. This is all he really wants to know, and Hulk understands. The Captain, too, has a weak heart. The Captain, too, loves humans and not the monsters inside of them.

'Banner sleep,' Hulk says. Banner is never okay with so many people always trying to smash him.

Hulk wants to crawl underneath the Captain's clothes and stay there forever.

But the Captain steps back.

'We should go to Tony,' he says, and he steps towards the open lift. Hulk does not want to go back into the lift, but he dares not say it. Still, the Captain turns around. 'We don't have to use the lift just yet,' he says. 'Tony can come over here. Jarvis, could you -'

'Done, sir,' the ceiling says.

The Captain takes his hand as they wait by the doors of the lift. Hulk is grateful, but he is also trying not to cry again. He touches his cheeks with his free hand to be sure. The Captain massages his fingers. The greed imagines the Captain massaging all of him.

The lift doors slide open and Tony is there. Tony is safety, makes Banner sigh contentedly in his mental sleep. The Captain lets go of his hand.

'JARVIS told me,' Tony says before the Captain can speak. He looks at Hulk. There is no scared in him that Hulk could dig out and smash.

'How are you feeling, buddy?', Tony asks. 'Do you think you can sleep?'

Hulk does not sleep, sleep is vulnerability, something for Banner. But he does not want Tony to go.

'Hulk sleep,' he says.

'Good. Because I haven't slept any in the last day or two, so I could definitely sleep for a while. You want to sleep in my room? Has anyone ever explained to concept of sleepovers to you?'

Hulk does not want Tony to go, so he says what docile Banner always says. 'Yes.'

Tony smiles. 'Not to the sleepover part, I guess.' Hulk does not understand this, but Tony looks at the Captain before he sees Hulk's frown. 'You can go back to making out with your Russian cyborg. I'll take care of this.'

The Captain says, 'I was just leaving,' and his face turns a darker pink.

Tony shrugs. 'A pity,' he says.

He looks back at Hulk. The greed wants him to never look away.

The Captain does not go into the lift with them. Hulk is scared, but Tony has a hand on his shoulder, and Hulk would go anywhere for it to stay there.

This time he is prepared when the lift starts moving, and his breathing is only a little too fast. Tony's hand falls from his shoulder and suddenly Hulk is angry like Banner is, suddenly he hates and hates and hates. He disappoints Tony, he ruins everything. He wants to smash himself like he is a monster the Captain wants him to fight.

They step out of the lift in silence. Tony is not normally silence. He is the distracting continuous babble around Hulk's head in battle. They smash together, Tony talks and Hulk roars.

Tony walks in front of him. Hulk should not walk beside Tony. He knows his place.

He has never seen Tony's bedroom. It's smaller than Banner's, and one wall is behind a curtain. The light is dim, and Tony takes off his clothes. 'Are you in any kind of pain?', Tony asks.

Hulk wants to say yes, as Banner always does. Tony loves Banner and all of his yesses. Hulk wants Tony to love him and his yesses, too. 'Yes,' he says. He searches for pain in this body and lifts his bloody knuckles.

Tony pulls on sweatpants over his briefs, and then he leaves the room through another door than the one they walked in through. Hulk is angry at himself for answering the question wrong. 

Tony comes back with a red box in his hands. He sits on the bed. 'Come,' he says.

Hulk comes.

'Sit,' he says.

Hulk sits.

Tony takes Hulk's hand and says. 'This is going to sting.'

He dabs a wet wad of cotton onto Hulk's knuckles. It does sting, but this pain, like this body, is puny.

The blood leaves his skin and stays on the cotton. Tony wraps his knuckles in soft white bandages. 'Here,' he says when he's done. 'Better.'

'Yes,' Hulk says.

Tony sets the red box onto the ground. 'Do you need anything else?', he asks.

Hulk doesn't need anything. Sometimes he eats or flees or thinks of Betty Ross, but he doesn't need anything. He will always live, even if nothing else existed anymore. He does not speak.

'Is it okay if we sleep in the same bed? I won't touch you or anything, but I figured you shouldn't be alone like this.'

'Yes,' Hulk says. He feels sick. He does not need Tony to touch him, but he wants it so badly that his chest constricts with it. But Tony does not want to touch him. And humans' wants come before monsters', this he knows.

Tony is crawling under the sheets at the other side of the bed, Hulk does not look, but he can tell from the scratching of the sheets against each other. Then the sound stops. 'What's wrong?', Tony says. Hulk wants to dig the scared out of his voice and smash it. He wants to smash himself for putting it there, for existing. He hates everything and he doesn't understand why.

'Hey there, buddy,' Tony says. He is in front of Hulk. 'What's wrong?'

Tony touches Hulk's cheek. Hulk sees how his fingertips shimmer. They are wet.

Hulk does not want to cry in front of Tony. He pushes his fists against his eyes. His glasses fall from his face.

'Hey,' Tony says. 'Sometimes people need to cry, it's okay. Just let it happen.' Hulk doesn't need anything. Tony's hands are around his wrists. 

Hulk punches his own eyes with his fists, again and again. He does not want to cry in front of Tony.

'Hey, buddy,' Tony says. 'Please don't do that. Don't feel bad. It's okay to cry.' Tony pulls him down, pulls layers of blankets over him. Hulk keeps his fists pushed against his eyes. 'I cry, too, sometimes. It happens.' Tony lies down beside him. The lights dim and they are in the dark. Tony is not touching him, but Hulk can feel his warmth under the blankets.

Tony's hands reach for his wrists again and this time Hulk allows him to pull his fists away from his eyes. He takes one of Tony's hands and pushes it against his face like he did with the Captain 's. He sucks two of Tony's fingers into his mouth, desperate to do something right, to convince Tony not to leave, to come closer.

'Oh,' Tony says softly, the pads of his fingers against Hulk's tongue before he pulls them out. 'You want to touch?'

'Yes,' Hulk says.

Tony comes closer, and Hulk tries to press against him as much as he can. Intertwines their legs. Pushes their necks against each other. Breathes in Tony's hair.

Tony puts his arms around Hulk and tightens them, as if to be even closer. 'Night,' he says.

Hulk falls asleep, knowing Banner will be the one who wakes up. This time he does not mind as much as he usually does. He has this memory now, and Banner cannot take it from him.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from RE: Stacks by Bon Iver


End file.
